Pensions

National:Public pension debt jumps 113% to $5.6 trillion
Stanford University’s U.S. Pension Tracker now pegs state and local pension debt at $5.6 trillion nationwide — in agreement with last month’s report from State Budget Solutions, a project of the ALEC Center for State Fiscal Reform. It is undeniable that states and localities are saddled with massive unfunded liabilities; now it’s time for meaningful reform.

National: States and cities are drowning in pension debts
R Street’s Alan Smith writes that “while there’s a clarion call from every class of political leadership to do something about sea-level trends, one sees only a bare occasional mention about the rising tide of red ink that impacts our future in ways most people will find to be a lot more threatening.”

National:How Trump can stop the pension mess from spreading
States are having a hard enough time managing their own public pensions. Allowing states to operate private retirement plans is “a disaster waiting to happen,” writes the Manhattan Institute’s Steven Malanga.

Michigan: Lawmakers considering city pension reforms
Municipalities across the state are facing significant unfunded liabilities — and the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System of Michigan (MERS) justifiably wants them to boost contributions.

Texas:The time to fix Texas’s public pensions is now
“Unless Texas takes steps to improve its pension outlook, its citizens could soon be paying much higher taxes, even as they receive fewer public services,” warns Josh B. McGee, chairman of the state’s Pension Review Board.

Smart budgeting is vital to a state’s financial health. The ALEC State Budget Reform Toolkit offers more than 20 policy ideas for addressing today’s shortfalls in a forthright manner, without resorting to budget gimmicks or damaging tax increases. One way to stabilize budgets over time is to embrace …